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Become part of our meta-Kickstarter Social Experiment

Special thanks to MAP (Maryland Art Place) for being our fiscal sponsor on this project. Without MAP, this project would never have gotten off the ground.

Overview

Our goal is to help support local, regional, and national artists, through donations to those artists’ crowdfunding campaigns in exchange for allowing us to exhibit a selection of the materials they offer to their supporters as “perks”, “rewards”, and “gifts”.

Since its inception, Kickstarter reports that its patrons have pledged more than $300 million to successful visual and performing arts projects. Artists, tired of stagnation as they wait for grants and gallery representation, have turned to crowdfunding as a means to support their artistic ventures and supplement traditional funding. In doing so, these creatives have built a community of supporters who are rewarded with tangible “perks” and unique experiences.

“Mining the Crowd”, a crowdfunded and crowdsourced exhibition, will present materials from artists actively engaged on websites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. By building a community of supporters, the curatorial team – Steven H Silberg, Nia Burks, Peter Hayes, Nate Larson, & Erin Zerbe, will explore the crowdfunding model and all of its pitfalls as a means to create an exhibition. This 15-month project will intentionally receive no direct financial support from the host gallery thereby relying entirely on crowdfunding.

Once completed in early 2015, the exhibition and additional programming will be presented at the Maryland Institute College of Art’s Sheila & Richard Riggs and Leidy galleries located in the Graduate Studio Center in Baltimore’s Station North Arts District.